Websites With Free and Open Source Datasets

In data science and analytics, datasets are used to create statistics or infographics that illustrate certain issues or facts. You may need to use a dataset to assist with:

• Assignments while pursuing your master’s in data science degree.
• Generating actionable insights for your boss or a company relying on data analytics.
• Creating a graphic that summarizes important facts or trends in a simple, visual way.
• Analyzing the choices or patterns consumers, customers, or users are prone to making.
• Testing the functionality of your data management system.
• Fine-tuning or evaluating an AI model, since machine learning projects need labeled, well-documented training and test data just as much as traditional analytics work does.

If you’re new to datasets, Kaggle is a great site that will help you explore different datasets and get excited about all the possibilities in data science and analytics. The following websites also offer datasets that are free for public use. Review these sites so you can learn where to access datasets to practice data analysis, test your management system, or find statistics to assist with an upcoming project.

Hugging Face Datasets

Hugging Face Datasets has become one of the most heavily used dataset resources since this article was first published, largely because it grew up alongside the AI boom. The platform hosts hundreds of thousands of datasets covering text, images, audio and tabular data, many of them specifically formatted and documented for training or evaluating machine learning models.

Datasets are searchable by task (e.g., text classification, image generation, translation), size and license, and most can be loaded directly into a Python project with a single line of code via the Hugging Face datasets library. If your data science work touches machine learning or generative AI in any way, this is likely to be the single most useful entry on this list.

BuzzFeed News Archive

BuzzFeed News shut down as an active newsroom in 2023, so it’s no longer a source of ongoing datasets tied to current events the way it once was. Its data journalism archive, however, remains publicly available on GitHub as a historical resource, and it’s still worth a look for practice projects. Datasets in the archive include:

• Fake news sites and viral posts.
• The movement of COVID-19 cases in several major cities.
• Contributions to presidential campaigns.
• Analysis of Federal Communications Commission data breaches.
• Gentrification tracking in major cities.

Because the archive is static, treat it as a well-documented set of historical case studies rather than a source of current data — useful for building practice projects and infographics, but not for anything that needs to reflect what’s happening today.

Reddit r/Datasets

Reddit is a public, user-generated content sharing site that allows users to post information and observations. As a collection of forums that allows users to interact with one another and provide opinions on issues, Reddit wouldn’t usually be considered a top source for datasets. However, within these discussion boards lies an entire community dedicated to data. Users in this subsection of the site request, discuss and exchange datasets for free.

Reddit users post datasets that offer useful information and statistics relating to current news stories. Since all data is submitted by Reddit users, it may not be verified. It’s important to only use data retrieved by the dataset forum at your own risk.

To access these datasets, visit r/datasets directly and browse or search by topic.

In some cases, users are simply looking for datasets they can download to practice grouping information or to study data organization techniques. Users may also find it beneficial to download datasets from Reddit to learn how data behaves within a management system.

Socrata OpenData

Socrata OpenData is an expansive open portal that contains many datasets covering various topics and issues. Socrata itself was acquired by Tyler Technologies in 2018 and now operates as part of Tyler’s government software suite, but the open data portal continues to aggregate datasets published by the many government agencies that use Socrata’s platform. With so much extensive data offered on the site, users may find it overwhelming to search for certain subjects that relate to the datasets they need. However, the Socrata OpenData homepage offers many strategies to filter the datasets available so you can identify the ones you need for your specific project.

You can sort available datasets by authority, category, view type, or tag. It’s important to know a little about the subject you’re investigating so it’s easier to choose the categories and how you want to retrieve the datasets before searching.

When the site retrieves your related data, review the date the dataset was uploaded. With such an expansive portal, some data may be older so you’ll need to find updated sets to use for the most accurate information.

If you choose to sort your data source by “Community” instead of “Official,” the datasets that appear are uploaded by site users. They may not be as accurate or reliable as those provided by authorities.

The Socrata OpenData site is known for providing free public datasets in countless categories, including:

• Facebook marketing costs.
• Music sales data.
• Payroll reports for Senate employees.
• Radiation analysis data throughout the U.S.
• Fatalities in the workplace, sorted by state.

When you find a dataset that relates to your project, you have the option to download the set to your computer. You may also visit the link to the data source or contact the dataset owner, if available.

Nasdaq Data Link (formerly Quandl)

If you’re interested in using your computer to study data science as it relates to finances, you may find Nasdaq Data Link datasets useful. Nasdaq acquired the platform, formerly known as Quandl, in 2018 and completed its rebrand in 2021; long-time users may still see “Quandl” referenced in older code libraries and documentation, but the platform itself now lives under the Nasdaq Data Link name. It offers free public datasets about financial and economic issues, though some of the more extensive datasets require payment.

When you visit the site, access these datasets by creating an account and searching by the data category. Categories you may choose from include:

• U.S. stock prices.
• Auto sales estimates.
• Historical U.S. equity information.
• Global index prices.
• Company spending patterns.

Download datasets directly to your device to import them into a data management system or review statistics that are useful for your project.

Free public datasets are helpful if you’re trying to expand your data science skill set, work on a project, or create infographics and visualizations for your business. These websites offer expansive datasets you can download to help achieve your data analytics goals.